


The Next Level

by camillepreaker



Category: iZombie (TV)
Genre: Angst, But not without some struggle before, F/M, Let's pretend 1x10 never happened, Lowell and Liv are happy together, Lowell lives, Romance, alternative ending, alternative universe
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-14
Updated: 2016-07-14
Packaged: 2018-07-24 00:37:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,261
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7486473
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/camillepreaker/pseuds/camillepreaker
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lowell is killed, but he doesn't stay dead. After all, he came back to life once, why would it be so hard to do it twice?</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Next Level

**Author's Note:**

> So, because I really loved Lowell, and I really shipped Livwell, I decided to rewrite episode 10 as if Lowell had come back. I haven't watched 1x10 yet because I'm still trying to get over his death, so this will take another turn on the show and on the "zombie mythology". I hope you guys enjoy it!

Ravi only turned around when the wheels stopped on the floor. He was just finishing sewing a corpse’s chest in a Y shape. Another body, another day. He thanked the men that had brought the body to the morgue, and proceeded to start his work. He was singing under his breath, a happy tune to balance the… _morbidity_ of the place. He didn’t have a problem with dead people, but now that he had gotten used to his partner’s presence, his workplace seemed empty without her.

Ravi put the latex gloves and opened the bag. He gasped and stepped back when he saw the corpse inside. His first thought was, _Lowell_. And his second thought was, _Liv_. He had many questions going around his mind at the moment, like _How did that happen?_ and _Does Liv know?_ , but he knew something for sure: he had to find his friend.

He walked towards the door in a fast pace, but stopped when he heard a _tuck_. Then another one. Like uncertain baby steps. Then a shallow inhale, as if testing their capacity of breathing. Ravi was almost hesitant to turn around. He was the only living person on that place full of people. Unless…

Ravi finally took a peek. Lowell sat on the silver cold surface where he laid dead two seconds ago. He stepped barefoot on the floor carefully, as if that was a new sensation to him. His naked body was white as snow, and his hair had gone back to a zombie’s natural color. He blinked once, twice. Except that his eyes were black and red, his veins popping against his pale skin around the eyes. And above them, there was a black circle, a clear sign that Ravi had seen many times over the ears: a bullet.

_Oh no,_ Ravi thought, _he’s in full-on zombie mode._

He didn’t know what to do. He had only seen this happen once before, and they didn’t exactly deal with it. He could defend himself, but he couldn’t hurt Liv’s boyfriend. Not again, at least. So he ran out of the morgue when Lowell lifted his head and his eyes spotted Ravi where he stood frozen. The doctor was sure that on Lowell’s mind’s eye, Ravi was perceived as a good and big piece of meat on a plate.

Ravi locked the doors as fast as he could. Lowell started pounding from the inside. Ravi ran to get help, but then he stopped in the hallway, realizing he didn’t know where Liv was. If Lowell had been - most probably - killed, where had Liv been during the murder? What was her role in all of this? As much as he knew she’d be devastated if she thought Lowell was dead, Ravi prayed that she already had heard the news and he didn’t have to break it up to her.

He got his phone out of his pocket and tried to call her. She didn’t pick it up and the call went straight to voicemail.

“Liv, there’s an emergency, call me!” Ravi hung up without saying anything else.

Ravi turned a curve and collided with a girl. He couldn’t mistake the white hair anywhere in the world. He wasn’t sure if there was a time he had felt happier to see her pale face.

With red and swollen eyes.

Which reminded him of why he was in a hurry.

“Where have you been?” he spilled out. Liv took a moment to register his presence and his question. His friend looked, more than ever, like a zombie. Before, her appearance was of one, but she never acted like one before. Which could only mean she knew about Lowell.

“I was being questioned by the police,” she said slowly, as if she wasn’t sure how to pronounce the words. Her brain suddenly seemed very slow to process things. She sighed deeply, trying to gather forces to say what she needed to say next. “They thought I was a suspect in a murderer. Ravi, Lowell… is dead. Dead _dead_.”

Ravi started shaking his head. Whatever made the officers see that Liv was innocent, he also had a body to prove there hadn’t been a killing. But he couldn’t show them Lowell when he would try to eat their brains.

“No, no, Liv. They just brought him to the morgue and I can assure you he’s far from dead. As far as a zombie can go, anyway. I think Lowell pulled a Lazarus card on us.”

_“What?”_

“They brought him in five minutes ago, and at first he _seemed_ dead, Liv, but when I was leaving the morgue he just… resurrected. And I think there’s no food in the afterlife, because he’s really hungry.”

Liv was paralyzed, her eyes wide open. Ravi’s words started to make sense. Resurrected. Hungry. Just like when Liv had waken up in that bag by the beach. It was as if everything were happening again. And she certainly did remember the hunger, even after months had passed.

“Show me,” she told Ravi. She had to see Lowell now. If he was alive… She knew Ravi wouldn’t joke about it. The friend seemed scared and serious enough.

Ravi led her to the morgue. Liv couldn’t register the path. She had been there many times, but her brain had been on automatic mode since the rooftop… and since what had happened in it. As much as she couldn’t stop playing the scene in her head, she couldn’t force herself to think actively on it or talk about it, as if the words would make it true. Even though it was true. The police had arrested her. She had felt the cold of the handcuffs, the leather seat under her, and the tight on her throat while she cried in the backseat of the car.

Ravi stopped and put his hand on the knob. He faltered before opening it. At first, Liv couldn’t understand the delay – she had to see Lowell _now_ , couldn't Ravi understand it? -, but too late she began to understand that something was wrong.

The morgue was quiet. Ravi started to regret coming back there. If Lowell wasn’t that desperate for brains anymore, that meant he had found something to eat.

Liv was thinking the same thing. If she had been starving the first time she woke up, how would that be on the second time?

Lowell squatted on a corner, his head lowered; too concentrate on something to pay attention to the two people getting closer behind him. Corpses with their heads open were everywhere. Ravi and Liv had to dodge from the trail of mashed brains on the floor that led to him.

Liv took a deep breath, and reached out a hand to touch his shoulder. _No matter what I see next, it doesn’t change anything. It doesn’t change my feelings for him,_ she tried to convince herself. She had been on that condition before, and still, Lowell had loved her. And he had been on that situation before, and she had fallen in love with him anyway. That was why she had liked him in the first place. He knew what she had been through, and he understood. He didn’t judge her. He saw past the pale skin and hair, he saw the real Liv, and loved her nevertheless. “Lowell?” It was almost a whisper, and for one second she thought he hadn’t heard her. Then, when she was almost touching him, his turned his head to stare at her with wild eyes, gray matter dripping from his chin.


End file.
